This Dutch quartet was formed in 1986 by Patrick Mameli and Randy Meinhard (guitars). Shortly after finding drummer Marco Foddis, they recorded the "Dysentery" demo with Patrick on bass and vocals. Three months after Dysentery's release, the band found a truly brutal vocalist (& bassist), Martin Van Drunen. They quickly made "The Penance" demo and released it in October 1987. Roadrunner signed them spring 1988. The band's debut LP "Malleus Maleficarum" was released in September and was praised by the death metal underground (for proof, check Antiposer!!!). During the year after, Randy wanted to go more melodic but agreed to stay til they found a replacement. In Holland, they played with local act THERIAC - they noticed their guitarist Patrick Uterwyk, and immediately recruited him. The band rehearsed for a while and then recorded "Consuming Impulse".

The album (produced by Harris Johns) is bright, intense, pure gore with ultra fast grindy vocals. Supposedly this is slower than their first LP. The slow parts are sort of doomy with cool leads, but this is mostly a high speed riffing affair (like Slayer and Death). The lyrics are well written but nothing special. Worthy of mention are these lines from "The Process of Suffocation" :

why give a child it's birth
when we are poisoning our earth
the heritage of this generation
is a planet threatened with destruction

Overall, not memorable, but it has a great solid production, and the feeling I get is that these guys enjoy playing a fast & mindless form of death metal.

© 1999 mlotek
[originally published in "Doomhauled"../"Scrolls of Doom" fanzine 87-90]